1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for scanning user readable information using a hand-held device and, more particularly, to methods and systems for heuristically organizing the scanned information for later use by a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Each day, an average person may read a large number of articles from a variety of sources. A routine skim through the daily newspaper may alone account for dozens of articles or advertisements a person may look at in any given day. At work, a person may read even more information found in, for example, trade journals, news periodicals, or even intra-office communications. But during each reading, a person is often at a loss on how to efficiently capture or retain important information.
While reading through this information, people will do one of several things when they read something particularly important to them. First, people may make a note of the important information and where they found it. Additionally, people may tear out or photocopy the article or advertisement and put it in some sort of folder. All too often, however, people will make no record of the information and simply hope that they remember it. But even if a person does use one of the first two options, the information is still not collected and stored in an efficient manner. Records are often poorly kept and cumbersome to search through at a later time.
Recently, hand-held devices have been developed for gathering useful information. These systems typically ask the user for guidance on how to interpret and recognize a document. For example, the system may use a mode book to manually alter a scanning pen""s mode. The mode book includes a plurality of mode cards, each of which contains at least one scannable data field operative to change the pen""s mode or enter a command. Each scannable data field comprises machine-readable information (e.g., a bar code, a two-dimensional glyph code, or easily-recognizable text) and a human-readable label.
The user uses the mode book as follows. First, the user locates the mode card associated with the type of document the user is currently scanning, and runs the scanning pen over a field associated with the type of information about to be scanned, such as xe2x80x9cbegin title.xe2x80x9d In this way, the mode cards inform the scanning pen what type of information it is collecting. Thus, the user alternately scans fields of the mode card to instruct the system on how to process the scanned information.
A problem with these types of systems is that they require a significant amount of intervention on the part of the user. For example, constantly referring to a mode card interrupts the user""s normal flow of reading the document. Further, the additional amount of work required by the user actually deters the user from reviewing the document in the first place.
Thus, there is a need for a scanning system that a person can use to store important information found while reading and that operates with minimal intervention on the part of the user. Further, there is a need for such a system that can automatically organize the collected information into a format that a user can efficiently review.
Systems and methods consistent with the present invention scan user readable information with minimal intervention on the part of the user. Moreover, systems and methods consistent with the invention automatically organize the scanned information into a format that the user may efficiently review, modify, and correct, as needed.
To achieve these and other advantages, a system and method consistent with the present invention scans and formats indicia located on a document. The system includes a scanning head for scanning the indicia located on the document and a memory for storing the scanned indicia. The system further includes a processor for heuristically recognizing a meaning of the scanned indicia stored in the memory. The processor then creates a data entry describing the document and the scanned indica based on the recognized meaning of the scanned indicia.
Both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.